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APPENDIX I
SECRET
INDUSTRIAL AREAS CAMPAIGN IN SCOTLAND .

Smaller Meetings, informal discussion groups, and other activities .

In our reports on communists and Scottish industrial workers (See Appendix A, Home Intelligence weekly report No. 9) it was pointed out that the main effect of disruptive elements in industry was not a direct one - the slowing up of production by strikes etc. - but rather indirect - the fostering of cynicism and disillusionment about the war. This cynicism is the natural response of many of the younger men who have been unemployed during most of the twenty years between the two wars, and it is rapidly acquired by others. It has been made fashionable, not only by the native tendency of the Scot (particularly in West Scotland) to grumble and ‘girn’, but also by the assiduous encouragement of communist ‘educators’. The result is that the majority of the politically minded workers on Clydeside use the language and slogans of communism, although in practice they show that they have no use for the communist party. The Clyde has never been quieter and more determined about anything than it is just now about finishing with Hitler.

The plan to promote small meetings and informal discussion groups among the workers has, for its main purpose, to produce a number who will speak up in the workshops and elsewhere, and make articulate the real feelings of the workers about the war, feelings demonstrated adequately in their behaviour. The organiser, Mr. William Roberts, is a Clydebank man who has worked many years in Singers as a skilled mechanic, and previously in shipyards. He studied politics, economics and philosophy at Newbattle Abbey, the Scottish residential college for workers' education. Before his appointment Mr. Roberts was running informal discussion groups in his spare time.

The organiser has not only got going several effective formal and informal discussion groups: he has also been invaluable as an advance outpost against communist infiltration through ‘shadow’ organisations; and gave valuable service throughout and since the very heavy air raids on Clydebank last month.

This report accordingly falls into two parts.

(1) Organisation of meetings and discussion groups.

(2) Special action against communist ‘shadow’ organisations.

(1) Organisation of meetings and groups .

After a fortnight's training in preparation and delivery of talks designed to promote friendly and informal discussion, the organiser went on to organise two formal and two informal discussion group meetings every week.

The formal groups were attached to War Commentary meetings in Bridgeton and Clydebank respectively; the informal groups, or ‘Kitchen meetings’, were held in private houses in the Clydebank district.

The three Clydebank groups have been dispersed by the raids. The two houses in which the ‘kitchen meetings’ were held have been destroyed. In place of these meetings the organiser has developed new types of meeting, described below, partly in Clydebank and partly in the reception areas, not only among former group members but among new people. Meantime, two new formal groups have been formed, one attached to the Springburn War Commentary and the other to the Govan War Commentary.

Throughout the whole period addresses followed by discussions have been given to established groups such as A.R.P. groups, Church Debating Societies etc. and, as noted below, the organiser has acted as guest speaker in various War Commentary meetings, describing his experiences as a voluntary fire-fighter in the Clydebank raids.

Methods of work

(a) Formal meetings (attached to War Commentaries)

The attendance at these groups generally begins at about a dozen and becomes stabilised at between 15 and 20. Attendances are occasionally affected by air raids but only when there have been local incidents on immediately preceding evenings. The groups are mixed; industrial workers and housewives with the former predominating.

The topics for discussion usually arises out of the big War Commentary meeting on the Sunday. As the groups develop, however, interest is shown in such topics as ‘The Origin of the War’, ‘The Background of the Battle of the Atlantic’, ‘Democracy at War’ and other topics. For example, the first Clydebank discussion arose out of Chaplin's film, ‘The Great Dictator’. In following weeks the main topic was the ‘Freedom of the Press’ (Daily Worker suppression)

(b) Informal discussion groups - ‘Kitchen meetings’ .

The following account of a series of ‘kitchen meetings’ gives a good example of this informal method of work.

“One woman of my acquaintance came to me one day and asked me to come up to her house and attempt to discredit the communist family who lived next door. She explained that she herself knew practically nothing about politics or the war, an ignorance which she also attributed to her neighbours, but claimed that both the man and his wife were most voluble having “a string of fancy words” about the war before which she, her husband, and the other neighbours were dumb. Things were made most uncomfortable for her by the never ending insistence that we couldn't possibly win the war, - that the government weren't giving us the real figures of air raid victims, - that this was a war between the capitalists of Britain and Germany, and that we, the workers, had nothing to do with it, and should therefore see to it that it was stopped.

“The first time I called on her I found that about twelve other women were also present. I just listened to the woman C.P. member and occasionally interjected until she had had her say. She really had no more consciousness of what she was saying than a gramophone record has. After criticising her, she, by implication, admitted this, but maintained that “her husband would be a match for me”.

“Well, on the second occasion there was a larger audience, in fact, about 16 of us. The husband was as hopeless as his wife; in fact, even more so, because he used such terms as dialectics, materialistic conception of history etc., which I asked him to define, but he couldn't; this, of course, went a long way in lowering his prestige among the others.”

“We met a third and a fourth time, but on the fourth occasion the C.P. enthusiasts didn't turn up as they had gone to the pictures.”

“On the next occasion the communists returned to the fray to find their hitherto inarticulate neighbours had now found words to express themselves, thanks to the group and to the big War Commentary meeting.”

New Types of Meeting .

The raids which shattered Clydebank social life might well have put a stop to the discussion groups experiment in that area. But the informal technique has proved flexible enough to adapt itself even to a blitz. For example, the organiser is a great deal in and around Clydebank and the Vale of Leven where he meets members of his groups. These then become the nucleus of a discussion there and then.

The organiser also visits Rest Centres in the evening when the workers are there, and starts discussions. Here a new method has been invented. One of his acquaintances, living in the centre, is deaf. What could be more natural than to shout into his ear facts and figures in the course of an argument about the raids or the Battle of the Atlantic? Others soon gather round and take part. This discussion, begun among a crowd of dockers on the day of the adoption of the new Ministry of Transport scheme, soon developed on vigorous lines. On one or two occasions it looked as though a fight would develop, but one docker took the part of the organiser, and in the upshot he was invited to return as soon as he was free.

(2) Special action against communist ‘shadow organisations .

(a) Attendance at communist meetings .

It is a definite part of the organiser's work to attend communist meetings wherever possible. Meetings are usually a surer guide to policy than are publications. It is much easier - and safer - to speak frankly in a meeting. Hence the importance of this continuous contact. As the organiser says: “ I cannot help feeling that if the M.O.I., or the Labour Party or any other such group, seize this moment the C.P. will be practically knocked out . If, however they are given time to collect their units and rally their forces, they may again be as big a nuisance as formerly. I would suggest M.O.I. meetings regularly on Sundays with a first class speaker. This would have to be done at once , though it may be uphill work for a time both as to numbers and hostile criticism”.

(b) Intelligence work on industrial grievances .

Workers who know the organiser frequently report industrial grievances to him. Since one of the chief communist activities is the exploitation of existing grievances, an essential job in counteracting these people is to have a quick and ready way of discovering concrete grievances, and this is done effectively by the organiser.

(c) Apprentices' Committee .

The Apprentices' Committee, that mysterious self-appointed body which claimed to lead the wave of apprentice strikes in Scotland early in March, was composed of nine young communists and one non-communist. The latter, upset by the apparent disinclination of his colleagues to come to any settlement (they kept in the background in a most perplexing way for a week) consulted our organiser. The organiser advised him strongly to remain on the Committee. He was also advised to consult those who were trying to get a settlement, and did so.

(d) Other shadow organisations .

A valuable activity is that of exposing to Catholic and other non-communist workers the fairly successful manoeuvres of the communists in creating ‘shadow’ movements which are so tempting to political innocents, who are thereby helped to avoid being involved in any of these movements.

Future Developments .

The period under review may be regarded as one of experiment which has established the value of these informal methods of work in starting fruitful discussions among industrial workers and housewives who would normally find it uncongenial or difficult to attend meetings. A speaker who speaks their own language, and who is prepared to go among them, can do good service not only in counteracting communist misrepresentations, but also in meeting the much more difficult problem of general apathy and confusion about the war. The well established groups also show a healthy tendency to go on to discuss positive issues. In the next three months, as these develop, small groups of industrial workers will be better armed with facts and ideas enabling them to put into words the real issues of the war and the determination of the workers that it should finish in the right way. The whole summer period in its turn should be regarded as a preparation for the problems and stresses of next winter.

Public Relations Branch

St. Andrew's House,

Edinburgh, 1.

April 24, 1941